About Me

Jim is the author of eight novels, three memoirs and four business books. He made a covered wagon and horseback trip across Texas to retrace the journey his ancestors had made two generations earlier and wrote Biscuits Across the Brazos to chronicle the trip. He traveled the team roping circuit as an amateur and worked roundups on big ranches. Working beside real cowboys sent him back to writing. Using lessons he had learned from more than 10,000 client interviews over thirty years and memories from his rural Texas roots, Jim published five novels in his Follow the Rivers series and three in the Tee Jessup/Riverby series. He has also published three memoirs and story collections.He has been a Writers Digest International Book Contest Finalist.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Once
again Jim Ainsworth has written a novel worthy of highest acclaim. His
characters come to life and leave the reader feeling as if you've known
them always. From the beginning, I couldn't put the book down because I
was drawn in to the web of intrigue surrounding Tee Jessup. Tee is
such a well developed character, very likable, and extremely believable.
This is another winner from an amazing author.

Rails
to a River is the fifth book that I've read by Jim Ainsworth. It was
an amazing read! I literally had to put the book down after the first
two chapters and just digest what I had read. I think and I read in a
very visual way. Jim's development of characters, descriptions of the
scenes, and stitching together of the plot let the book flow through my
mind so smoothly it was like watching a movie on the big screen. I
truly look forward to getting "a'holt" of another one of Jim's books.
Ken Ryan

Jim's
characters draw you in --you feel and experience their lives as vividly
as you experience your own. Jim is a wonderful storyteller, weaving
personal knowledge and expertise into his plots! Wonderful reads!

RAILS
TO A RIVER is my first Jim Ainsworth novel, and it has been a true
pleasure. I can’t compare it to any of his others, but I enjoyed the
contemporary setting for an age-old sorrow where necessity drags a man
away from his dreams. While some might call Tee Jessup shiftless because
of his constant moving from one empty job to another, he is actually a
man honoring what is true within him but at a cost. The story keeps you
riveted because of the unexpected twists of characters and plot, but
this masterful writer keeps all the ends tied so the reader doesn't trip
over any of them. I haven’t read many books of late where I couldn't
wait to get back to my Kindle, but this was one. Ainsworth’s passion for
his Texas home, its cowboy history and the very land under his feet
keeps his descriptions fresh and his story real.

Ainsworth
has written an intriguing story which cannot be predicted from one page
to the next. The turns and twists are marvelously woven together to
make the story live. I loved it. The only reason I did not give it
five stars was I thought the protagonist rose to the top of his
profession too quickly. Advancement in his chosen field comes more
slowly than it was presented. Don't let that opinion keep you from
reading this great story. It is well worth your time.

Jim
H Ainsworth is an avid story teller that writes in a style that I call
easy reading. He carefully develops his characters, weaves his
Christian background throughout his stories, and the stories keep your
interest. I have read seven of Jim's books and I am currently reading
the eighth. I find his writings to be both educational and
inspirational. I recommend Jim H. Ainsworth to all ages

Rails
to a River is a masterful blend of the intricateness of corporate
America and the cowboy way of life, two subjects Jim Ainsworth knows
well. Truth and fiction are so smoothly interwoven, one can only
imagine where Jim Ainsworth ends and Tee Jessup begins.

I
just finished reading A River of Stories, and I'm amazed at the
development of Jim Ainsworth's storytelling ability. The book is a
collection of stories about life, family, friends and a quest to
understand everything, and they reveal the depth of character of a truly
wonderful writer and amazing man. The stories are not only
entertaining, but many deliver underlying life messages and lessons that
I wish could be plugged in and downloaded to my grandsons. I soon will
be reading the last of this series, "Rails to a River", and I looked
forward to the bar being raised even higher.

Jim
Ainsworth is one of the few writers to write about a long-neglected,
but significant region of the country--east Texas. This anthology
records the area's mythology and simultaneously tells us Jim's own
engaging narrative through a series of skillfully written stories and
articles about his youth up to the present. In A River of Stories one
gets to know Jim and east Texas. Their stories turn out to be, like
those of all good writers, one and the same.

In
today's majority Christian America, Biblical literacy is as rare as
mathematical proficiency. In the last segment of A River of Stories -
"Believing in a Grand Thing" - Jim displays his life-long discipline in
"doing the math". He describes his cover-to-cover approach of reading
through the Bible three times. Many Protestants do not know there are
400 years of Hebrew narrative missing in their Bibles when compared to
Catholic versions. In addition, many are not aware that book order has
nothing to do with the chronological order of the narrative. With this
in mind, Jim's ability to mine so many nuggets of ancient wisdom is
remarkable. This is an important book. Buy it. Read it.

I
was slow in reading this book due to being short stories, but once I
became engaged with the stories, recognizing the true characters from
his books, I could not put it down. I have been amazed at the many
people Jim has met, drawing them into life long friendships. I must
admit tears filled my eyes whilereading the eulogies. I believe I
got a glimpse of Jim's character in all his books, but in "A Rivers of
Stories" Jim revealed his heart. I loved this book so much, I plan on
giving this book to others. I am looking forward to more books by this
author.

This
book is a collection of readable stories taken from the life of the
author. It gives a new insight into his wonderful Rivers series and his
new Tee Jessup series. I particularly liked his Bucket List chapter and
his tribute to his father. This collection will certainly provide food
for thought. Don't plan to breeze through the stories; stop and think
about each one.

What
a life... What an inspiration...what adventures! Thank you JIm, for
sharing so many extraordinary experiences. Would love to be a fly on the
tree next to some of the Cowhill Council's confabs! A River of
Stories was a delightful collection.

These
true stories are short, real, and very readable. One can dip in and out
at will and still never lose touch with the Jim Ainsworth magic which
can be found in each tale. In "The Eulogy I Never Delivered", Ainsworth
does deliver a pitch-perfect, loving tribute to a father who comes alive
on the page--a tribute which sets the tone for the rest of the book:
genuine, heart-felt remembrances of interesting people, times, places.
This author is an authentic cowboy/writer, one of the best--fiction or
non-fiction.

I loved Jim Ainsworth's new book, A RIVER OF STORIES. When a great story teller calls up memories of good cowboys, great horsesand growing up "rural" its better than homemade ice cream on a hot summers day.

Friday, July 3, 2015

We have been talking about best
seller vs. low-sellers. Now let’s discuss fiction vs. non-fiction and what
sells best. By now, you probably know that novels are the hardest sell for
unknown writers. So why do I write them?

Abraham Verghese, MD and medical
school professor, says, “Good fiction can achieve a higher kind of truth than
non-fiction. Good stories are instructions for living . . . a great novel can
transport you to another planet, let you live vicariously a full life, and when
you come back, it’s still Tuesday, and yet you’ve learned the lessons of a
lifetime. That’s what everyone, doctors included, could get from fiction, and
God is in the details.”

People often ask how much in my
novels is true. I usually give them a percentage. When they ask about Home Light Burning, a novel that takes
place just after the Civil War, I tell them it as about as true as your average
history book. Actually, in some places, it’s more accurate than many history
books.

G. K. Chesterton’s book Everlasting
Maninfluenced C. S. Lewis to return
to Christianity.Chesterton said,
“It’s not enough to be told about something that happened or a historical fact.
We want to know what it felt like. So long as we neglect this subjective side of history, which may be
more simply called the inside of
history, there will always be a certain limitation on that science which can better be transcended by art. So long as
the historian cannot do that, fiction
will be truer than fact. There will be more reality in a novel; yes, even
in a historical novel.”

Pat Conroy said, “A novel is my
fingerprint, my identity card, and the writing of novels is one of the few ways
I have found to approach the altar of God and creation itself. You try to
worship God by performing the singular courageous and improbable favor of knowing
yourself.”

Fiction or non-fiction, we
should realize that reading for pleasure and reading for knowledge are not
mutually exclusive. Novels have changed the world—because we learn from stories.
We can gain knowledge and pleasure in the same book.

My point in making the comparisons
between our writing and best-sellers is to illustrate that you might write a
very good book that does not sell well. Most don’t.

But I can promise based on my own experience
that you will grow wiser and stronger through the reflection required to write
a book—that you will meet dozens of new people and will rekindle dormant
friendships. You will gain pleasure and a sense of accomplishment for your
efforts, and you will contribute to posterity—if not for thousands, at least
for your closest circle of friends and family.

Write your book not because you
want a best-seller, but because you have something to say, something to pass on
to future generations.

No experience? Afraid of making
mistakes? How does one get experience? From making mistakes and from deliberate
practice. So just write. Be yourself. Find your voice. Write how you talk and
express how you feel.

The bad news is that, after more
than twenty years of writing, my doubts about writing have still not
disappeared. I told someone once that I write because I can’t sing. When my
doubts return, I hum the words to “Why Me, Lord?” written by Rhodes Scholar
Kris Kristofferson (whose ambition was to be a novelist). I knew the first few
lines by heart, but when I looked up the lyrics, I found this verse:

“Try me, Lord. . .if you think there’s a way—I can try to
repay—all I’ve taken from You. Maybe, Lord,
I can show someone else—what I’ve been through myself—on my way back to You.”

Also from Ravi Zacharias: “the day
that each person willingly accepts
himself for what he or she is and acknowledges the uniqueness of God’s framing
process marks the beginning of a journey to seeing the handiwork of God in
each life. Trying to mirror someone else’s accomplishments is one thing. Trying
to be someone else in distinctive
capacity is unhealthy and breeds insatiable hungers. Not everyone is a Bach or an Einstein. But there is splendor in the
ordinary.”